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July 12, 2006

Sticker Shock: A Post-USFK South Korea Must Do Less for More

A few days ago, the Marmot linked this RAND report on South Korea’s Defense Reform Plan (DRP). The report starts with some alarming disclaimers: it could not access much of the ROK MND’s classified information on strength levels or weapons systems, and the author has no experience (!) analyzing defense budget requests. Nonetheless, the author was able to pull together enough knowable facts to convince me that the DRP will come unglued. How fast? Without a national emergency, I give...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/Technology/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 11, 2006

Tongsun Park Trial Update

Today, Claudia Rosett reports from the courtroom that Park was picking up the tab for Maurice Strong’s private New York office. And that matters, why? Strong, for example, served in a public capacity in 1996 as a top adviser to former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then from 1997-2005 as a special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. With the rank of under-secretary-general, Strong orchestrated Annan’s 1997 reorganization of the U.N. Secretariat, stayed on as a top adviser, and from 2003-2005 became...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/U.S. Law
July 6, 2006

Statement from Rep. Henry Hyde

This just in. Many thanks to the reader who forwarded this. Today, North Korea acknowledged that it fired seven missiles, including an intercontinental missile, the Taepodong 2, as a “routine military exercise.” The long range missile, which is designed to have the capability to reach the United States, failed within a minute of its launch and therefore represents no immediate threat to the United States. However, the successful short range missile firings constitute a direct threat to our troops in...

Categories "United" Nations/Washington Views/WMD
July 4, 2006

Now What?

North Korea’s missile test opens up new options for the United States. Here is a list of them. [Scroll down for updates.] It too easy to say, as many will in the coming days, that there is little that the United States and other nations can do to North Korea diplomatically or economically now that it has done the unthinkably stupid and launched its (taepo)dong and (count ’em!) five smaller missiles [Update: make that six]. Let me express my respectful...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/NK Economics/U.S. Law/WMD
June 28, 2006

Tongsun Park’s Trial Begins

Park formerly served as a “Special Advisor” to Maurice Strong, a wealthy, uber-connected Canadian leftist who in turn was Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy to North Korea. Strong and Park have now both been implicated in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. During his tenure, Strong was notable for a deathly silence on human rights. He resigned after the OFF allegations emerged. Today, Park is charged with being an unregistered Iraqi agent, in violation of the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act. Writing in the...

Categories "United" Nations/U.S. Law
June 28, 2006

It’s About Damn Time

… Korea started paying the cost of its own defense. Which is why the most dovish South Korean president ever is forced to seek a very large increase in defense spending: South Korea’s defense ministry said yesterday that it has requested a 9.9 percent increase in the defense budget for 2007. …. In a proposal submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Budget, the military seeks to secure 24.75 trillion won ($25 billion) for the coming year, up from a...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
June 28, 2006

Balbina Hwang Nominated to Key Post at State

Balbina Y. Hwang was nominated as a special assistant to Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. …. On issues pertaining to North Korea, the analyst made clear that a hardline stance would continue to be be taken. She said diplomacy would stand at the forefront of dealings with the North, but the North Korean nuclear issue could only be resolved through pressure on Pyongyang. She said Washington’s open criticism of the North’s human rights...

Categories Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
June 26, 2006

Kim Jong Il Becomes a Liability for China

Wasn’t it just yesterday when the United States had finally begun to reduce the U.S. military footprint on Okinawa, after years of local residents’ demands? That was then. Tokyo and Washington will deploy advanced Patriot interceptor missiles in Japan for the first time, officials said Monday amid concerns North Korea may be preparing to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile. The U.S. and Japan reached an accord on the interceptors this month after reports of the possible test-firing became public, and...

Categories Activism/China/Geopolitics/Japan/NK Military/Taiwan/U.S. Military/WMD
June 23, 2006

Strange Doves (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About This Missile and Worry About Proliferation Instead)

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte The day after Newt Gingrich called for destroying North Korea’s Taepodong II ICBM on the ground, former Clinton-era SecDef William Perry has made a similar call in a Washington Post op-ed. He is joined by Ashton Carter, who turns out to have been Perry’s assistant before he was Demi Moore’s. The latest to support this proposal is … Walter Mondale: “I think it would end the nuclear...

Categories Diplomacy/Geopolitics/NK Economics/NK Military/U.S. Military/WMD
June 21, 2006

Newt: Destroy NK Missile on the Ground

[Update: John Bolton has the quote of the week: “You don’t normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles ….”] National Review has two pieces today on North Korea’s satellite ransom theater possible missile test. The editors argue, as I did here, that the United States should shoot down the missile if the North Koreans launch it. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, no doubt motivated by a desire to make me look like a moderate, goes further:...

Categories NK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
June 20, 2006

The End of Sunshine?

[Update 6/20: As predicted, the North Koreans aren’t taking this well.] “We have the right to speak.” — North Korean government official, talking about South Korean politics Has international pressure has finally forced South Korea to abandon years of official apathy about the phobocracy that is North Korea? Finally, South Korea declares, it will ask the North to treat the lives of its people with a modicum of respect.

Categories Activism/Europe/Human Rights/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
June 19, 2006

Please, Please, Please Test It!

Plenty of people have asked me if Kim Jong Il will test a long-range Taepodong II missile, and really, I have no more idea that anyone else this side of the Taedong. On one hand, the North Koreans are desperate for some attention. They’re running out of money and friends, and they’ve added liquid fuel to a rocket, that’s corrosive to the fuel and oxidizer tanks and is thus more than an empty gesture. On the other hand, North Korea...

Categories NK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
June 19, 2006

The Congo Question, The Heart of Darkness, and Accountability

The enforcement of standards of civilized behavior is what distinguishes us from our enemies, and today, we must again make that distinction plain. The Army has charged two soldiers and an NCO with murder in Iraq, based on an alleged incident that took place just last month. A three-star general ordered the investigation after following up reports about it. We eagerly await a John Murtha coverup allegation. The case will now proceed to an Article 32 investigation, a cross between...

Categories "United" Nations/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Law/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
June 17, 2006

Why He Took Those Pictures

The U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow, has paid a very public visit to the Kaesong Industrial Park, and the initial signs are good. Vershbow, a man who seeks the public debate his predecessors so often avoided, has not shied from stating some rather blunt views about North Korea. Thus, the fact that the North Koreans allowed his visit to go forward at all is surprising. Best of all, Vershbow snooped around, took pictures, and even seems to have...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/Technology/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/WMD
June 5, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 41

I don’t know how much deader you can get than this: In a seismic shift in an alliance that has held since the Korean War, the military plans to scrap Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command by 2012, it emerged Sunday. Wartime operational control of Korean forces will also return to the country, probably by 2011, since it now rests with the commander of the U.S.-led CFC. According to a military source, plans to abolish the CFC are clearly stated in the...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 29, 2006

Korea Diary, 29 May 06

A Cold Wind in the North: North Korea has cancelled its visa waiver program for some Chinese visitors, and China has reciprocated. Like every other effort to explain what the North Koreans are up to, it’s speculative. The Joongang Ilbo’s writer speculates that it’s about North Korean fears of excessive Chinese economic influence, which makes sense, whether or not it’s the reason for this move. Another possible explanation — purely speculation and entirely my own — is that North Korea...

Categories China & Korea/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society/NK Economics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 21, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 4: The Fiaola Ricefield War

The lastest example of the Washington Post’s awful Korea coverage is certain to leave you less informed than before you read it. Anthony Faiola manages to distort the Battle of Camp Humphreys into a conflict between peaceful, bucolic peasants and Uncle Sam’s evil puppet. Faiola apparently found one of the few local residents in attendance — there are just 70 of them among thousands — a sympathetic-sounding 90 year-old woman. It makes a better story to tell it this way...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military